Friday, January 7, 2011

Triangulation II (Kadima Collective #30 - 2010)

This is what my children are calling 'Ghost Music', which is a great description for such a music as this. And when I say that my children gave it this title it's a big compliment, after all I notice that children (mine at least) often hear music in another way, giving names to sounds or melodies with no prejudices about what they mean or might infer. So here we have it Triangulation II (#30) in the catalogue of Kadima Collective, a label run by Jean - Claude Jones.

The music here suits the ghost images very well as these improvisations are all based on atmosphere that could be described as cinematic - i.e. they would not be out of place on a film soundtrack. The reason for this, to my ears at least, is the interesting use of bass flute, bass saxophone and a few other 'extreme' register instruments by Vinny Golia. Due to imaginative use of wind instruments - clarinet, bass sax, flute, bass flute and others probably, the (un)usual trombone sounds of George Lewis combine with the bass playing of Bert Turetzky, much of the music builds on atmosphere and rarely melodies, except for the last piece. Commenting on individual pieces is difficult and rarely do the titles of the tracks define the music - which is where Anthony Braxton's number system for titles springs to mind as a useful way of categorizing tunes/tracks without influencing the listener as to what they might hear.

However, if one had to describe the music at all I would say that almost all the pieces are ballads in feeling. Never is there any aggressive screeching and it's almost as if the musicians hoped to keep a calm reflective sound in the music, almost serene. Of course there are aggressive moments such as "Diversion Ta Tre" which use Lewis's singing harmonics combining later with the bass. The end section of "A Low Frequency Colloquy" also uses the bass saxophone to great effect. But the general direction of the music is towards a calm contemplative sound and much of that is due to the unusual choice and use of such instruments as the bass flute and bass sax. As already mentioned the last piece "Up Is Down" has a quite amazing opening with flute, trombone and bowed bass creating an oriental atmosphere. The music gradually moves into much darker sounds only to return to the original motive at the end .... planned maybe?

All in all this is an album that reveals many details with listening. Whilst writing this review I would constantly hear sections passing which were beyond description when using words. George Lewis' unusual use of trombone sounds often become unidentifiable as such, and when combining with either the double bass of Turetzky and the wind instruments of Golia, create textures of real delicacy. A real success, and one that grows with listening. What more can one ask?

5 comments:

Great review.I am always keeping an eye out for any new George Lewis releases, but I had definitely missed this one. His releases seem to be few and far between. So I highly anticipate them. This sounds great, listened to the samples on amazon and am downloading as I write. All the musicians sound great.Looking forward to listening to the whole thingThanks for the heads up.jeff

When Stef was writing all the reviews the stars were relative to what he was hearing with all the CDs/LPs he was listening to (and reviewing). Here it's now a team of writers and maybe a little more difficult to 'rate' in the same way. We can maybe think of a system which will give some idea of how highly we rate the music, although the fact that it's reviewed (in general) means that it is interesting/good enough to be presented.

I don't know if you ever looked at guides such as AMG Jazz, AMG Rock, Penguin Guide to Jazz etc. I loved reading the reviews and it took me a while to realise which reviewers had the same tastes as me. Some gave 2 stars for music for which I thought worth much more, and vice versa. I always think it's best to get to know your reviewers tastes, that way you have better idea of their tastes in comparison with your own.

George Lewis is a fantastic trombone player, but he seems reluctant to let it be noticed.My god, I would love to hear him play in a jazz context, just like he did when playing on spectacular records like Ming or Home by David Murray. Those of you who want to hear thé best trombone record (as far as I know): please listen to Give and Take, by John Lindberg Trio, with Barry Altschul on drums (Black Saint). Fantastic! Peter

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ALBUMS OF THE MONTH

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Lotte Anker & Jakob Riis - Squid Police

What I appreciate in music & how to evaluate it for others

Here are some criteria which I find very important, and true, there may be overlap between them all, but they still have their specific shades and colors of value, and there may be other criteria to add.

1. AUTHENTIC : the emotions have to be real, genuine and truthful, the prime objective should be to create good music for the sake of the music itself (not in order to sell, or to show off, or any other thing ...). That's why I like improvized music, because the link between emotion, musician, sound and listener is to be found in its purest form. It's your immediate emotion you're transmitting, not someone else's. Paradoxically enough, this also includes "absence of self", as a prerequisite for true interplay, listening skills and communion between band members.

2. ADVENTUROUS : the artist/band should be looking for new ways to express what they feel and have to communicate. What's the point for the listener to hear the same kind of approach as others have tried. The surprise element, the creativity, the musical vision are part of the adventure. As a listener I want to be taken along, and explore new musical horizons.

3. ACCURATE : when you hear the sounds, you must have a reaction of "Yes, that's it!", as the sublime translation of feelings through skills and mastery of the instrument, the total sound created by a band or the newly created musical language. The sound, or just obtaining that single note which encapsulates it all, yes, then you know you've transmitted something as a musician, that you've received something as a listener, that you share something. Doing that requires accuracy and concentration.

4. ARTISTIC : by that I mean the more cerebral aspect of music. There is some concept behind it, which leads to structure, balance, length, interplay, selection of instruments, of musicians, of new approaches. This does not go against improvisation, quite on the contrary : great improvised music is all about artistic vision, clever group interaction.

5. ATTENTION-GRABBING : though music can and should require an effort from the listener, it should also include a factor of entertainment, in the sense of keeping the attention going, of being captivating. Lots of music, and especially during long soloing, contains the risk of losing the listener somewhere along the way, even if the musicians themselves are very intensively busy with interesting things. There is of course lots of music which does not take the listener into account at all...

That's my "quintuple A" internal rating system. The stars I usually give in my scoring system are not only not very accurate, they're also not sufficiently discerning. Maybe I should give stars for each of the five criteria listed above. I think the five criteria also include what in Arabic is called "tarab" : appealing to mind, body and soul alike, as far as I understood this from the liner notes from Rabih Abou-Khalil's album with the same name. I specifically did not include the qualifier "beautiful" in the list, because that's even more subjective than the ones already there, and furthermore, I did not find a good synonym for it which starts with an "a" ...